72 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



I think rain is as necessary to the mind as to 

 vegetation. Who does not suffer in his spirit in a 

 drought and feel restless and unsatisfied ? My very 

 thoughts become thirsty and crave the moisture. It 

 is hard work to be generous, or neighborly, or patri- 

 otic in a dry time, and as for growing in any of the 

 finer graces or virtues, who can do it ? One's very 

 manhood shrinks, and, if he is ever capable of a mean 

 act or of narrow views, it is then. 



Oh the terrible drought ! When the sky turns to 

 brass; when the clouds are like withered leaves; 

 when the sun sucks the earth's blood like a vampire; 

 when rivers shrink, streams fail, springs perish; 

 when the grass whitens and crackles under your 

 feet; when the turf turns to dust; when the fields 

 are like tinder; when the air is the breath of an 

 oven; when even the merciful dews are withheld, 

 and the morning is no fresher than the evening; 

 when the friendly road is a desert, and the green 

 woods like a sick- chamber ; when the sky becomes 

 tarnished and opaque with dust and smoke; when 

 the shingles on the houses curl up, the clapboards 

 warp, the paint blisters, the joints open; when the 

 cattle rove disconsolate and the hive-bee comes home 

 empty ; when the earth gapes and all nature looks 

 widowed, and deserted, and heart-broken, — in such 

 a time, what thing that has life does not sympathize 

 and suffer with the general distress ? 



The drought of the summer and early fall of 1876 

 was one of those severe stresses of weather that make 

 the oldest inhabitant search his memory for a par- 



